Thursday, September 27, 2012

Welcome back to
the show which is available to stream at Scanner FM. Probably the four dub techno tracks building up to the Tresor part of
the show don’t need too much introduction here, or if not, some previous posts
might carry the information. As for Tresor, there is plenty to say, which is
one of the reasons why we turn the spotlight on them this week.

Obviously the
emphasis is split in two: half on the label and half on the club itself and by
default its existence in the changing landscape of the German scene.

Regarding the
label, I mention in the show that it is worth comparing numbers and names with
Berghain and Ostgut Ton, perhaps a little scientifically, for what they reveal
about the changes in the local scene.

The Tresor label
opened its doors back in 1991 with the release of the first eponymous album by X101,
the supergroup featuring Jeff Mills, Mad Mike Banks and Robert Hood, which set
the scene for a run of Detroit-influenced albums and singles.

Looking at the
various interviews and documentaries, the respect at the time between the club
and the American producers was very mutual, but retrospectively it still feels
something of a surprise to find such a foreign influence on the label despite
the club harbouring many German residents. This was pre-internet days after
all. Of the first 20 or so releases on the Tresor label, only the “Berlin 1992”
compilation and releases by Ingator II, 3 Phase and 3MB (featuring both Moritz
von Oswald and Thomas Fehlmann) involve German artists, whereas the rest is
from Detroit. By comparison, running through the first 20 releases on Ostgut
Ton, which kicked off in 2005, and you find Englishman Luke Slater on a
compilation, part Caribbean-Austrian Cassy mixing the first Panorama Bar mix
and that’s about it. The rest is German. Perhaps the only point of this is to
highlight the African American origins of techno, something that should never
get watered down, but the open arms with which techno was received as a “world
music” and importantly as a liberation music in Berlin at the time. The wall had
just come down after all. Obviously, there were more important things to police
than clubs and there was still enough cheap real estate to make things
possible, something that is only now just changing.

The first Ostgut Ton 12", released by Berghain residents Marcel Dettmann and Ben Klock

It is also worth
comparing Berghain and Tresor for the important role in which the physicality of
the club plays on the music. For example, the epic “Fünf” (fifth i.e. fifth
anniversary) box set from Ostgut Ton featured 24 exclusive tracks all of which in
some way (some more than less) featured sounds sourced from the structure of
the building itself. Nick Höeppner said this several years ago at Resident Advisor

“[Emika] told me
about her last visit to Berghain. It was a regular Sunday morning and she
noticed how everything in the building was resonating and vibrating and
swinging and humming–she realized that there were lot of sounds coming from the
building itself. That led to the idea of doing field recordings within the
building while it's not open to the public. She had access to everything, the
cooling rooms, storage rooms, the PA rooms... Our in-house technicians helped
her mic the lighting rigs, they recorded the strobelight flashing, the fridges
humming... They recorded impulse responses in the space of Berghain and built a
reverb plug-in from that. It took about two or three weeks, then she took home
tons of rough field recordings and edited them down to a library which she
organized into different groups: downstairs, cloakroom, toilets, water,
glasses, swings... whatever she has recorded...”

Tresor has had
the same relationship since its inception. Anyone who was ever at the original
site in the basement of the old Wertheim department store will remember and be
inspired by the darkness, the smell, the red lights and sweat dripping from the
roof, the invisible DJ and shadowy dancers behind bars and the rusted safe
deposit boxes. The label itself has turned the scenario into myth, even using
the original shape of the old key to unlock it as the symbol of the club.
Similarly, over the years, many artists have paid homage to the location in
tracks invoking the space like Mike Huckaby’s “Tresor Track” (played on the
show), The Advent's “The Vault” and more. The Wire magazine also published a
feature article on the subject of architecture in particular relation to Tresor
and other Berlin clubs several years ago (sorry, back issues in Australia and
cannot check my facts or pin point the issue here).

The old Tresor
was called a “Techno bunker” at times and carried a true punk aesthetic that is
sometimes missing in today’s world of straight lines and hipster design. But
sadly the original venue was to close down in 2005 due to gentrification of the
Potsdamer Platz area, a problem that has received a lot of media attention lately
and even lead to the closure of the famous Tacheles squat
earlier in September this year, while the Liebig 14 tenement block squat was forcibly shut down
in February last year leading to some backlash. The
relocation of Tresor also led to the effective cessation of the label for
several years, particularly with regards to new music. It is ironic then that
Jeff Mills quipped in one early documentary that Tresor was “One of the most
consistent and steady labels in Europe”.

Between 2005 and
2007 as the club moved to a new location in a power plant (or Kraftwerk in German
(sic)), a long series of perhaps overdue reissues kept the label afloat. It was
the sudden emergence of several new 12”s by the likes of Vince Watson (who
apparently expressed keen and direct interest in releasing on Tresor), several
remixes of Juan Atkins' mythical Infiniti project and other 12”s by the like of
former resident Pacou and Sleeparchive that re-launched the label.

There was more
to it than that, however. Mike Huckaby mixed together a "20th
Anniversary Compilation" last year, featuring mostly old tracks, but also a new
one by himself (featured on the show), amongst others. Hot on the heels of this
came the release of the recent "SubBerlin" documentary (directed by Tilmann
Künzel) which charted the first 20 years of the Tresor club and labels history,
cementing the clubs phoenix-like rise from the ashes.

This is not of
course the first official documentary of the club. This distinction goes to “Tresor
Berlin: The Vault And The Electronic Frontier” directed by Mike Andrawis for which
there is no apparent media available on-line. Spanish readers can find more
information on the documentary by clicking here.

With regards to
the gentrification of Berlin, it is probably a problem that Detroit might like
to have. The decline and the problems of Detroit have been well documented in
many places recently, including a film by Julien Temple (“Requiem for Detroit”)
and also “Detropia”. Mr C may not come from Detroit, but his words perhaps
stick with regards to the legacy of techno and what place it has in the social
unrest:

The other issue
facing Tresor and the other Berlin clubs is the pressure being put in place by GEMA (Gesellschaft
für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte (Society
for musical performing and mechanical reproduction rights). GEMA is a powerful collections
agency in Germany representing some 65,000 artists (probably not many of them
techno producers). They have recently stated plans to change the fee system by
which all live events are charged. Depending on whom you believe, the big clubs
in Berlin like Tresor and Berghain could face extraordinary price increases after
1st January 2013 with the possibility that many will have to shut
down. This comes in the wake of the news that the company behind Sven Väth’s Cocoon
Club in Frankfurt has gone into administration. The looming crisis provoked by GEMA has
caused a great deal of political unrest in the upper levels of club management
in Germany, leading to the formation of the Club Commission
which represents clubs and some concert organisers who feel slighted that the
GEMA, a non-governmental organisation, has unilaterally made plans for reforms
without first consulting the different sectors of the entertainment industry.
The Club Commission is currently organising demonstrations and awareness
companions in order to broker some room for negotiation, claiming that the “Techno
tourists” are an important source of revenue for the state. The irony is that,
on one hand, it is the techno tourists and hipsters coming to Berlin that are
partly driving the increases in property values and creating a cultural
backlash, while on the other hand are cited as necessary for the sustainability
of the scene.

The conflict is
set to play out until the end of the year and probably beyond, but the force of
GEMA is not to be taken lightly as they have already played a big role in
forcing Youtube to take down copyrighted music videos in Germany back in April this year.

Strangely, despite
the demonstrations and the five minutes of silence at the decks by several
clubs, so far there has been no noticeable protest song or solidarity release.

Finally, one
last word. As Detroit disintegrates and Berlin grows, so too does its myth in
print. Several recent books celebrate the scene and the lengthy and winding
history of Berlin and German music.

Back in 2009,
the Innervisions label published an English translation of Tobias Rapp’s “Lost
and Sound: Berlin, Techno and the Easyjetset”, a pioneering account of how
Berlin became the techno capital. More recently, Théo Lessour published his
book “Berlin sampler: From Cabaret to Techno: 1904-2012, a century of Berlin
music" which traces one hundred years of history of the capital’s music. Check
out the official website for some historical videos that
highlight the key narrative points of the book.

Monday, September 24, 2012

New program of
Cabeza de Vaca should be up tomorrow already so a post later today on that.
Meanwhile a signpost to an interview I did way back in June with up and coming
Italian group Esperanza. We met back stage of Sonar and had a quick chat which
has now been published by Cyclic Defrost in Australia with a brilliant picture
by Bianca de Vilar. I was a bit unprepared for the interview and sadly missed
their sow as well since I was trapped in the dungeons of work at the time.
Sorry guys, but nice to meet you and catch up.

A couple of
additional points though.

The video and
track to “Jaipur” from their self-titled debut album last year on German label
Gomma are wonderful and capture the group’s sense of humour and indie pop side brilliantly.
Made by the band themselves, it tells an invented story made from
internet-sourced videos.

The relative
heaviness of the track is somewhat offset by the more lighter, electro pop
sounds of the rest of the album that features collaborations by their good
friend Alessio Natalizia under the Banjo or Freakout moniker.

Natalizia is also
one half of Kompakt-signed duo Walls with Sam Willis. Eseranza’s proximity to
Walls has slowly let them into the fringes of the Kompakt community, where they have exchanged remixes with Walls and had many brushings with Michael Mayer. With
any luck they will keep their place and make their mark, especially if they are
now recording as they told me during the interview and can capitalise on a bit
of momentum.

In the interview
the group praise the talents of Italian singer songwriter Lucio Battisti of
whom I know very little. A quick trawl through Youtube reveals a plethora of
pop styles at his disposal: typical acoustic balladry up to even more electro-disco
styled tracks like this:

You can see why
he might have a big influence on the work of a group like Esperanza. Despite
existing within the heart of pop and at the centre of public attention, Battisti
also had an experimental side. In 1970 he had just won the prestigious Festival
della canzone italiana di Sanremo song festival for the second time in a row. His
label angered him by opting to release a compilation album of hit singles in place
of his concept album “Amore e non amore” which was considered too out there for
the Italian audiences at the time, although they subsequently released it in
1971. The concept of the album, “love and “not love”, meant that each side had
a particular sound, one lighter and the other heavier. The track titles too
were winding and labyrinthine elaborations like the final track "Una
poltrona, un bicchiere di cognac, un televisore, 35 morti ai confini di Israele
e Giordania" (An armchair, a glass of cognac, a television, 35 deaths at the border
between Israel and Jordan). Battisti also deserves full praise for the inspired
and exploitative nature of the cover art for this album.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

As promised, the radio show has gone live! The first pilot/introductory episode is now available on Scanner FM .Commentary is in English in the end as it is easier to ad lib and quicker to prepare since time is not always an ally.I don’t need to add much more commentary for the first show as it is really an intentionally broad selection designed to show the range of where we might go rather than make any particular statement. Of course the inclusion of Pablo Bolivar for the first focus is a way of promoting local artists which will always be of importance, but only if the music is good. I am forever traumatised by the decision of Australian national youth/alternative station JJJ to have a minimum percentage of Australian music. While this policy had good intentions, it also had bad consequences as second rate garage bands which had done nothing more than record a sketchy track received considerable airplay at the expense of the otherwise perfectly good foreign music that they used to play.Full track listing is at Scanner FM.

Monday, September 3, 2012

A post where there shouldn’t have been a post. Some mother fuckers broke into my flat while I was on vacation and stole a lot of things from my flat forcing me to come home early at some additional expense when I was recently told I will be unemployed in the near future. A pestilence on them and their families.One wonders if it is a sign of things to come? Is it an increase in street crime due to the ongoing crisis and the worsening of the situation in Spain or is it coincidence? It comes on the day before the Spanish government increased the IVA (impuesto de valor añadido; the VAT or GST equivalent in Spain) from 18% to 21% on many things, amongst them the price of tickets to concerts, cinema, theatre as well as many consumer goods like clothes, alcohol, school items, in addition to services like gas and electricity. On Friday, the Spanish government also created what are called “bancos malos” or “bad banks” to absorb the over supply of devalued land and unfinished developments that are owned by existing banks and are catalysing the catastrophic fall in their value and potential.The increase in IVA has lead to an interesting situation in which the major Spanish music and entertainment press including, amongst others, GO Mag, Mondo Sonoro, DJ Mag, Time Out Barcelona, Guia de Ocio and Scanner FM, have published a manifesto called “La cultura no es un lujo” (Culture is not a luxury) and called for protests (the Spanish text of the manifesto can be found by clicking here.Amongst the propositions of the text, the collective have stated that the increase in IVA

“It is the final blow to an industry that depends on leisure spending for its survival and has been progressively cornered by the decisions of our leaders ... the list of tripping points for private initiatives by Administrations is endless: from the unfulfilled promise by the previous government to consider physical music sales and live performances as cultural products and lower the VAT to 4%, to the prohibition of access to a concert hall to minors, through the periodic obstacles to developers and some public places [hotels and pubs] to prevent scheduled live music. Special emphasis goes to the lack of response that our leaders have given over the last decade to the problem of illegal downloading, which has wiped out countless jobs at record companies and distributors”

Grim times indeed as so much is done in the music industry these days for free, or at least a promo CD, an entrance ticket etc.

The issue of illegal down loads is a critical one and a divisive one obviously that may well be coming to a head soon. The case of Megaupload drags on, whereas in the last weeks search engine changes have made it more difficult to find sites offering links for illegal downloads. The sinister side of this is that Google only made the changes so that it could expand its own fledgling music business to rival iTunes. It seems that nothing is ever done until money reaches a critical tipping threshold. Hardly a surprise, but always a bitter truth. Meanwhile, one of the founders of the Pirate Bay, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, was just arrested in Cambodia for possible extradition back to Sweden where he was previously sentenced to one year in prison for encouraging copy right violations. This comes on the tail of recent moves by some internet service providers in the UK, Australia and New Zealand to block access to the site. New Zealand already has a “three strikes” policy by which people caught downloading pirated material three times are fined. These methods have produced some results, but there is still up to 40% of internet users still illegally download material.

But couple the two processes together in Spain, massive increases to the cost of buying recorded music or concert tickets and a greater prohibition of piracy and you risk creating a cultural vacuum where nobody will be able to have or participate in anything cultural, except the rich and the political class.

Copyright rules are obviously a sticky issue for many. Ask Negativland how they feel, for example. Also, it is worth sticking through the 18 minutes of this fascinating audio documentary (not much to see actually, but don’t let that deter you). What is interesting here is the clear play-off between the “advantages” of the sampling culture (particular for some), whereas the copy right holder and the drummer of the original Amen break has received nothing, with one of them apparently living and dying in squalor at the end of his days.

So in conclusion: the banks steal from the government and the people, the government steals from the people; and the people steal from the people. I am reminded of the words of the Buzzcocks in their song “Breakdown”

“Now I can stand austerity, but it gets a little much when there's all these livid things that you never get to touch I'm gonna breakdown ...”

The crisis aside, there is still some good news from down on the street. New record store Sub Wax BCN has just christened their new label with the release of their first record, itself a re-release of Icelandic dub techno artist Aðalsteinn Guðmundsson’s debut album “Rhythm of snow” which originally came out on Force Inc in 2002 under his Yagya moniker.

Yagya also has a new new (sic) album out which is more pop orientated album with vocals by several different contributors. The sound is curiously radio friendly, but not always as regrettable as it would seem. However, there must have been some doubts over how it would be received as the album comes as both vocal and instrumental versions.